How to Use* a Mobotix Camera (*hack)

Mobotix cameras are great. They come with tons of features, top notch audio, video, recording, ect...

I don't actually own one, mind you. I like to find them online, and simply see what they see. This article is about what to do with a Mobotix camera, once you've found one, or if you own one.

First off, how do you find a mobotix camera you ask? The easiest way is a simple Google search:

inurl:"/control/userimage.html"

Most camera links will have titles like:
 mx10-9-31-61 Live
 m22 Live
 Live
 Menu

There are other searches you can try, but I'll leave that up to you to find.

Now that you have a camera, let's see what fun things we can check out!

Depending on the setup, different options will be available for you to play with. You might be able to move the camera, or zoom out and in. You can change the FPS and the camera view (Panoramic vs. Center).

I'm going to focus on my favorite elements.. AUDIO and screen TEXT.

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AUDIO

Mobotix has some fun audio elements. A Mobotix camera includes a speaker to play ABBA out of (or whatever), and a microphone you can pick up sound from. You can even talk through the camera speaker using your mic (assuming its been activated).

First you need to turn on the audio. I can only seem to get this work from IE, and not firefox or any other browser.
All you do is click the 'Audio On' button on the left. If you don't see it, then sorry, it's not activated.

Once you press it, it may ask for a username/password. Don't fret! Simply say Yes or Si or whatever language the button on the left is in. Then just click Cancel. Now it will either work, or it will say something about the Admin needing to activate the audio (no sound for you!).

You know it worked when a little speaker icon shows up at the top.

Now it's no good playing sounds through the speaker when you can't hear them. At least not to me. So turn up the camera mic. Go to the center drop-down and look for Microphone Sensitivity. Now you can choose how much sound it picks up. I find that this feature is most often available.

Next, try playing a sound through the speaker. Go to the same drop-down and choose speaker volume. Choose a number between 30 and -30 (I recommend 30 for hella loud). Select it. Now open the drop-down again and pick a sound from the list at the bottom.

Sometimes they don't all work.
If the camera is on a busy street, you can have a lot of fun scaring people with the camera alarm or confuse them with the cuckoo clock. Immaturity for the win!

 Let's try something more interesting now. Check to see if the speaker mic is activated. To do this, right click anywhere in the camera window. You will see two options: Audio from Camera and Audio To Camera. Click both so they both have checkmarks next to them.

 Now that it's checked, hold down the right-mouse button in the window, and the cursor will turn into a red microphone. Your microphone is now broadcasting through the camera!

 Again, this doesn't always work, if it's been deactivated. You can hear yourself through the camera mic, if it IS working.

MORE CAMERA AUDIO

In some cameras, you can access the action controls. You can find these by adding /control/ OR /control/action to the camera URL. (Example:  http://83.xxx.xxx.20/control/)

One action that I like, especially when the mic trick doesn't work, is the "speakip" action. This causes the camera to broadcast it's IP address and mac address over the speaker in a computerized female voice. It's loud, obnoxious and never fails to get attention.

Just pop this in the URL:   
http://89.xxx.xxx.107/control/rcontrol?action=speakip

Since it's just a url, you can even create a link in a forum or chat site saying something like "AWESOME FREE PORN", and as people click it, the camera just keeps broadcasting. HAHA


CAMERA TEXT

The Mobotix camera window includes some text options. Such as writing text, outside temperature, time/date, and much more.
If you want to add text, you need to access the control area.
Add /control/control?list to the end of the camera URL to access.

Example:  
http://83.xx.xxx.20/control/control?list

It's a little tricky to manuver around, but it provides you with the syntax you need to change the text.
 If you wanted to change your text color, you would use a url like this:

http://83.xx.xxx.20//control/control?set&section=text&textcolor=0x00FF00 

And to add/change text, you would use a url like this:

http://83.xx.xxx.20//control/control?set&section=text&print=Big Brother Is Watching

 Mobotix cameras have many options to check out, but these are few of my favorites.
 And those of you who go out and buy one... don't forget to change the default username and default password:   admin/meinsm

NOTE: If you have a trendnet camera, that is another one you really want to update, and change the username/password too.

http://71.189.230.108/anony/mjpg.cgi

Don't believe me? Do a google search for inurl:"/anony/mjpg.cgi"

Have Fun!

Filter Twitter by Country

This will either pull the country the person is twittering about, or the country they are from.

To only pulls tweets in the US, use ->   near:"hutchinson" within:1000mi

Here is an example search, that shows who has checked into US hotels on foursquare:

4sq.com hotel OR motel near:"hutchinson" within:1000mi

Have fun!

Export not working in Oracle OBIEE 11.1.1.5.5 dashboards

I was getting a javascript error when trying to export reports from a Dashboard in OBI. It looks like a piece of code is missing.

Depending on what browser you are using, the error may be about Downloadguard.js or viewcontrol.js. Or simply, 'control is undefined'.

A work-around to this (assuming you don't want to upgrade to a higher version), is the following:

1. Edit dashboard page.
2. Add the Text Object.
3. Input the following.
<script type='text/javascript' src='res/b_mozilla/downloadguard.js'></script>
4. Check the box Contains HTML Markup
5. Save it, and now the export should work!

Favorite VPN, Phone, Cellphone, and Firewall

Here is a catch-all post about all the new toys I'm playing with. I give each of these a thumbs-up.

Are you looking for a VPN? This one isn't free, but for those who are willing to pay for awesome-ness, this is the one. Check out Private Internet Access.

Yes, not the most creative name, but they really get the job done. The price isn't bad, and while they don't have a free trial, you can pay a small amount to try it for a month. That's what I did, and I'm sold.
It's easy to use and works great. I'm no expert on VPN's, so feel free to do more homework, but I would start with this one.

Next is phones....
I'm a fan of Skype. Again, it's easy to use and you can't beat the price. For 10$ you can call any number in US/Canada for 3 months. Target and other such stores even sell $10 gift cards that can be used towards Skype, so add it to your Christmas list.

I also use a pre-paid cellphone because I don't use a cell that much. I went with page plus cellular because you can hold onto purchased minutes for a whopping 120 months (!). They use verizon towers, so I haven't had a problem using my phone most places.
It has been finicky at times, when calling out. But only once in a blue moon. And frankly, you can't beat the price. I have to buy my minutes online, since they don't sell cards in my area, but it's very easy and quick to do.
So, if like me, you don't use a cell very often. And you want to hold on to minutes as long as you can before they expire, I would check them out. They have different plans, or you can pay by the minute.

I was in the market for a firewall, and I'm currently using Comodo Firewall. So far, I'm really liking it. They have a free version, which is great. And it comes with anti-virus too, if you need it.

Okay, that's all I got for now. Just my 2 cents, hope it helps.

Datastage - Loading MySQL Text into Oracle Varchar

I had to create a simple job to load data from a MySQL database into an Oracle database.
Everything was working fine until I had to move MySQL data that was in a Text format, into an equivalent Oracle field.


I grab the data in my first stage, and move it into a field of type Char, with the necessary byte size. The data then gets loaded into CLOB fields in Oracle, and in Datastage I label them as type 'Char' with the necessary byte size.
So far, this seems to be working well.

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You could also try using a User-created SQL statement, that casts the MySQL text data into characters.

Example: cast(description as char(2000)) as description

Then in DataStage, I have the data coming in as Varchar, and loading into Varchar2(2000) fields in Oracle. Keep in mind that I know these fields aren't very big, even though they are Text fields.
Perhaps not the most elegant, but it got the job done.

It also worked to have the data coming in as Char, and loading as Char. Make sure the field size is large enough.

Reading Datastage Logs

When using IBM InfoSphere DataStage and QualityStage, it's important to know how to use the logs. They can answer a lot of questions, and help isolate problems.

This is a simple introduction to reading the logs in Director.

1. Change the Refresh
You'll learn pretty quick that the default refresh is way too short. The page will refresh every 5 seconds, making it practically impossible to read anything.
First thing you should do, is lengthen the refresh time, or change it to manuel refresh only.
Go to Tools -> Options... -> General Tab ->  change the refresh time to 60 seconds or disable it.

2. Filter/Search for Warnings/Abort
Open your log file in Director. Go to View -> Filter Entries...
This will open up a box where you can filter for particular errors (ex. Warnings). You can also use Ctrl-F to search for a specific word or phrase within your log. You can also have it show more or less of the logs.

3. Check Related Log(s)

When you are checking a log for a sequence, that has several jobs, you can right-click a "Run Job" line, to see the log for that specific job. Click on Related Log.

4. Check the Details
When jobs abort, check the details. This is obvious, but some people gloss over these. Often there is more information about what caused the job to abort. Bad queries may display an error of bad syntax. A record with bad data may cause the job to abort, and often the record's data will be displayed in the error, so you can find the record and fix it, or delete it.

This is very basic information, but this is the best place to start when troubleshooting. For any just beginning in Datastage, hopefully this was helpful and Good Luck!

Remote Desktop .exe

In Windows, hit Start, and Run...  then mstsc.exe to open Remote Desktop.

Done!

I always forget this. What does it stand for?  Microsoft Terminal Services Client.
Or maybe it's easier to remember as... My STupid Sucky Computer

The program is usually located here:
C:\WINDOWS\system32

PHP script to search IP's and find matching URL's

For those who saw my Mobotix camera post, you probably have an idea of my love for security cameras and the like.
While trying to find more Mobotix cameras using Google, I quickly ran out of search results to check out. But I knew there had to be more out there that Google just isn't finding.

I decided there must be a simple script you could run that searches for URL's that match a particular search string (just like Google does).  But you could have it search a particular range of IP's, routinely checking one for the search string.
It wouldn't be pretty or efficient of course, but it would be simple and I could probably code it.

Let me preface this by saying, I'd never coded in PHP before, which might already be obvious.

So, my little PHP search script looks like this:

 

 You enter an IP address (minus the last 3 digits). This of course means that the search range is very limited.

Then you enter the IP range you want it to search. In the example above the IP's searched are:

216.172.100.1 through 216.172.100.80.

Then you enter a filename for the script to save its results to. If any valid IP's have a url that matches the search string, their header information is written to the file.

Like I said, it is very limited in what it can do, but not bad for my first PHP script, written on the fly. It's a starting place for anyone who wants to expand on it.

Here is the code. It's broken up into two files.

index.php

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
<html>
<head>
<title>IP Check</title>
</head>
<body>
 
<a href ="index.php">Home</a>

<p>IP Check<p>
<p>
IP format XXX.XXX.XXX. (ex. 70.147.100.)<p>
 X = lower number<p>
 max = upper limit <p>
 Filename to write to.<p><p><p>
 <form action="camcheck.php" method="post">

Enter IP: <input name="ip" size="12"><p>
Enter X: <input name="x" size="3">
Enter Max: <input name="max" size="3"><p>
 Filename: <input name="myfile" size="20">

<input type="submit" value="Start">
</form>
<p>
 <img src="magnify.jpg" alt="magnify"/>
<?php

?><p><p>
 </body>
</html>

The index file is basically just a bunch of html text boxes. The info captured is then used by the second file.

camcheck.php

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
<html>
<head>
<title>IP Check</title>
</head>
<body>

<?php

$path = "/control/userimage.html";  // url search string

 
$myFile = $_POST['myfile'];
   
$fh = fopen($myFile, 'w') or die("Can't open file");  //open file

for ($x =(int)$_POST['x']; $x <= (int)$_POST['max']; $x++)
{
    $url= $_POST['ip'].strval($x);
    //echo $url;

    $valid = @fsockopen($url, 80, $errno, $errstr, 4);   //check url

 if (!$valid) {
     // Output Error Message, if you care
    // echo '<p>not valid<p>';
    //echo "$errstr ($errno)<br />\n";
    //$returnstring = $url."  Not Valid $errstr ($errno)> \n
    //$returnstring = "X = ".$x;
     //fwrite($fh,$returnstring);
       }
    else {
         // Output Success Message!
       fputs($valid, "\nHEAD $path HTTP/1.1\r\nHost: $url[host]\r\n\r\n"); //socket opened
        $headers = fread($valid, 4096);
       
     $returnstring = "\n".$url."  Valid\n";
     fwrite($fh,$returnstring);    //write valid IP to file
     fwrite($fh,$headers);         //write header info
     fwrite($fh,"\n");
     }
}
 echo "\n Program Complete. Results sent to ".$myFile;
fclose($fh);

?>
<p><p>
</body>

</html>

In the camcheck.php file, you'll see that the url search string is hard-coded into $path. It would probably be easy to make that another textbox, so you can change what url string to search for.

"/control/userimage.html" is a typical Mobotix web cam url. Which is what I created the script to find.

When you run the script, it saves the header results to a file on your webserver. 

Here are some example results:

216.172.104.49  Valid HTTP/1.1 302 Found Date: Thu, 15 Nov 2012 16:32:40 GMT Server: Apache Location: https://billing.dathorn.com/control/userimage.html Connection: close Content-Type: text/html; charset=iso-8859-1 216.172.104.50  Valid HTTP/1.1 404 Not Found Date: Thu, 15 Nov 2012 16:32:42 GMT Server: LiteSpeed Connection: close Content-Type: text/html 216.172.104.55  Valid HTTP/1.1 302 Found Date: Thu, 15 Nov 2012 16:32:43 GMT Server: LiteSpeed Connection: Keep-Alive Keep-Alive: timeout=5, max=100 Location: https://2/control/userimage.html 216.172.104.56  Valid HTTP/1.1 404 Not Found Date: Thu, 15 Nov 2012 16:32:43 GMT Server: LiteSpeed Connection: close Expires: Mon, 26 Jul 1997 05:00:00 GMT Last-Modified: Thu, 15 Nov 2012 16:32:43 GMT Cache-Control: no-store, no-cache, must-revalidate, post-check=0, pre-check=0 Pragma: no-cache P3P: CP="NON CURa ADMa DEVa TAIa CONi OUR DELa BUS IND PHY ONL UNI PUR COM NAV DEM STA" Content-Type: text/html; charset=iso-8859-1 Set-Cookie: xid=788c930fc7639731a0609de479e12ae9; path=/ Set-Cookie: xid=788c930fc7639731a0609de479e12ae9; path=/; domain=www.comicjumps.com Set-Cookie: xid=788c930fc7639731a0609de479e12ae9; path=/; domain=www.comicjumps.com Set-Cookie: RefererCookie=deleted; expires=Thu, 01-Jan-1970 00:00:01 GMT; path=/; domain=www.comicjumps.com Set-Cookie: store_language=deleted; expires=Thu, 01-Jan-1970 00:00:01 GMT Set-Cookie: store_language=US; expires=Fri, 15-Nov-2013 16:32:43 GMT

I find it interesting just reading the different headers, and learning what they mean. You get an idea of what sites are located in certain IP's.
I haven't played with the script much, but I think it could be even more fun with some minor tweaks.

Right now it won't let me search more than 100 at a time before timing out. I haven't tried fixing that just yet.
Let me know if you have any hints/tips/fixes. I'd love to hear them.

Q. Why did the Geek cross the road?

A.  To get a better look at the Accessible Pedestrian Signals (APS).

Have you been at intersections and heard the push button talking to you (Wait. Wait. Wait.), or chirping like a manic sparrow?  These crossings have always peaked my interest. How do they work? Who makes them? Can I make the little speaker yell "RUUUUUUN!" at a specified time of my choosing?

These questions would pop in my head every time I drove by, so I decided it was time to do a little research.


First off, as far as I can tell, these 'talking' pedestrian signals are currently (2012) only being manufactured by one company. Yes, just one. So it would seem this is a fairly new technology.  The company behind this  genius tech is Polara Engineering out of Corona, California.  They create products used by many industries, including Traffic Management.

I was hoping, and happy to see that their website includes all the installation and operation manuals for their traffic products.  From here you can look at pages and pages of information.

I'm not going to go into great detail. You can read the manuals yourself, if you want to learn more.

Here is the Basic Setup:

1.   Their software communicates from their Central Control Unit to the individual intersection push buttons with digital data, over two low voltage wires. These wires also supply all of the power for the pushbuttons.

2. The Central Control Unit is installed in the Traffic Control Cabinet.

In my town, they are getting painted up by local artists.

3. The push buttons (EPBS) are installed on the traffic poles.

4. Run a system check to make sure everything can talk to each other.

5. Set preferences with E-Configurator.

6. Done!

 So what I'm interested in mainly, is the audio setup. This is part of the software, which is loaded in the Central Control Unit.

You can configure the setup using an E-Configurator. 

 From the manual:
"The E-Configurator is a battery operated hand-held device for making changes to the operating characteristics of Polara Navigator and EZ Communicator Push Button Stations (EPBS). 

It uses two-way infrared communication while held in front of a EPBS and pointed toward the red LED above the EPBS arrow button."









Sounds easy enough. Of course, it is password protected (factory default is AAAA).

Where could you find an E-configurator? Well, there are places, if you look around.

Using the Navigator Configurator (E-Config), you have access to a lot of setup options. As far as audio goes, you can change volume levels, and things like that. But what about a new audio file altogether?

Short answer.. No.

"Programming custom messages in the field requires a laptop, USB A/B cable and
the Polara EPBS Audio Programmer software. The software must be installed and
messages prepared prior to installation of the units on the intersection.
[...]
 if units are to be programmed in the field, a laptop with the proper software and voice messages must be prepared prior to installation on the intersection."

Polara has their own Youtube video that walks you through custom audio setup. But it's all done prior to installation.  I was disappointed by this, but reading the manuals was still pretty interesting.

 For example, the system can vary the volume of the audio based on how much ambient noise there is. And an 'extended push' option, where it will say additional information (street names), if the button is pushed and held longer.

Just know the internet is full of manuals. So if there is a gadget you have an interest in, it's worth taking a look.
 

Playing board games online (against humans)

Several years ago I found this site yourturnmyturn.com, and I've recently jumped back into it. Instead of playing a whole game in one sitting, you and your opponent take turns, sometimes days at a time. After your opponent makes a play, you receive an email reminding you that it's now your turn.


They have about 40 games, including classics like checkers, chess, stratego and scrabble. And some more obscure and newer games.

It's great being able to play friends and family, even when we can't get to a computer at the same time.

Registration is free and easy. If you want to register, use this special link. It will give me referral points (doesn't do much, except maybe put a star by my name).  Once you register, go ahead and start a new game!